This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I'm glad you joined us for day four of our look together through Titus chapter
2. We're going to look at verses 9 to 10 today. Let me begin by reading those
verses because I have a feeling they might bring up some questions for you.

I want to answer those questions and then get to the truth of the verses. Verses
9 and 10. "Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to
please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show
that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching
about God our Savior attractive.

" Now, before we get to what the truth of these verses mean to you and I today,
there is a big question, a very, very powerful question, and that is, what is
this about slavery? I mean, is this somehow condoning slavery? What does the
Bible have to say?

What does it have to teach about slavery? I want to cover that first and then I
want to talk about what these verses have to say to you and I today. Question,
does the Bible condemn slavery?

Answer, yes, without a shadow of a doubt. And that might confuse you at first,
having just read these verses, so let's dig into this. There are three things
you need to know to understand what the Bible teaches about slavery.

Number one, you need to understand that the slavery in the Bible, in the Old
Testament specifically especially, that that slavery is nothing like our idea,
our experience of slavery. Instead of entire nations being captured into
slavery, kidnapped into slavery, it was most often indentured servants who
served for a time. That was the slavery of that time, often to pay off a debt.

And in the Old Testament law, they were to be set free from this service after a
certain time, sometimes seven years, sometimes 49 years, according to the
teaching of God. Now, at other times in the Old Testament, this slavery was like
a prison sentence. It was a loss of freedom for a time to pay for a crime,
sometimes a horrendous crime.

But the kind of slavery that you and I think about, where you would go into a
country in Africa, you would take someone from their home, you would make them a
slave and bring them to America, the kind of slavery that was abolished in the
Civil War in America, that is an abomination to God in the Old Testament. Exodus
21 verse 16 says, "The idea of forcing someone against their will into slavery
is entirely condemned. " Let me read that verse, "Anyone who kidnaps another and
either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death.

" It was a death sentence to traffic in human beings. It was a death sentence to
kidnap someone either for yourself or to sell them to somebody else. So the kind
of slavery that we think about is condemned in the Bible.

What about this other kind of slavery? This indentured service kind of slavery.
The Bible speaks even against that kind of slavery, separating one from another.

The Bible tells us in Galatians 3. 28 that in Christ there is neither slave nor
free. There's neither male nor female.

You're all one in Jesus Christ. The golden rule speaks against this. Whatever
you want men to do for you, do this for them.

That's the law and the prophets. The Bible talks about when Paul writes to
someone who is a slave, he says, "If you are able to be free, obviously that is
what you should do. " If you're in the circumstance of slavery, you serve Christ
in that circumstance.

But if you're able to be free, as quickly as you can, become free. If the Bible
speaks against, and I know we're digging into some more detail today than we
usually do, but this is such a big question for so many. I just want to take a
few minutes to dig into it.

And if the Bible speaks against even this kind of slavery, then why would God
even give direction regarding slavery? Because we need direction. Because there
has been slavery in human history.

Jesus talked about this regarding marriage. Jesus as he was talking to the
Pharisees one time said that Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts,
permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. He's
saying there that God made a law regarding divorce because you have a hard heart
and he knew you were going to get divorced.

But it's not God's will that divorce should happen. From the very beginning he
said a man should cleave to his wife and they shall become one. Jesus' point
here is crystal clear.

There are some things that are permitted in the Old Testament. The many wives
that some of the kings had, that's another example. God commanded they not have
many wives.

They did it anyway. There are some things that are permitted in the Old
Testament that do not represent God's will, God's ideal. And due to the hardness
of Israel's hearts, God made a law concerning some of these things.

And the same thing I believe is true regarding slavery. If you want to
understand slavery in the Bible, you need to understand the slavery in the Bible
is not like our picture of slavery. In fact, it's condemned in the Bible, that
kind of slavery.

You need to understand that God condemns even the indentured service kind of
slavery. But you also need to understand a third thing. You need to understand
that it is the teaching of the Bible that eventually led to the abolition of
slavery.

I hear people say you can't trust the word of God because it teaches slavery.
What a misunderstanding of history. Many of the abolitionist leaders were
believers and reformers who saw the institution of slavery as an abomination
because of their belief in Jesus and because of their reading of the scripture.

Because if you read the scripture, you don't have to get very far in scripture,
just to the book of Genesis to see God's value of all people. We are all made in
the image of God. That one truth was enough to drive the hearts of believers to
fight slavery and eventually to defeat slavery.

Now, I've just touched on this. There's more to this subject than I could even
touch on, but I hope it's helped you to see that what you hear when somebody
says, "Oh, the Bible says this," has nothing to do with the truth many times.
Oftentimes there is a truth that you have to dig a little deeper in to truly
understand, and this is one of those truths.

If you want to learn more about this, there's an article at Apologetics Press,
ApologeticsPress. org. Just go to that site and search for slavery.

The first article that comes up, it will tell you some more about that because
this is something that's worth learning about if you want to learn more. Now, in
light of what we just said, Paul gives direction to slaves, not as an acceptance
of slavery, but because they were in every home in Rome. Every home had slaves.

Some had dozens. Some had hundreds of slaves, and he gives this direction
because many of the new believers were slaves. Instead of telling them to rise
up and revolt, which would have gotten them slaughtered in that culture, he
teaches them how to live for Christ in whatever circumstances they find
themselves.

He's not saying the circumstance is good. He's saying living for Christ is good,
whatever the circumstance. The truth is, even when an injustice is being done
against you, you can still live for Christ.

In fact, in the long run, that's the only way that that injustice is going to be
permanently changed. It doesn't come through external political revolt. It comes
through changed hearts.

What about us? I've learned from these words. These words that are applying to
slaves in that day, I believe, can apply anytime we're working for somebody
else, doing a task for somebody else, whether it's in my business or in my home
or working for somebody who's leading a volunteer team that I'm a part of.

As you look through these verses, they really tell you to do three things. You
work for the other person, not against them. You work with integrity, whatever
the circumstance, and you work to let other people see Jesus in you, wherever
you're working, whatever situation you find yourself in.

That's what you do. Now, our pride rises up sometimes. Sometimes we want our way
instead of their way.

If you're working for someone else, if they're the leader and you're the
follower in that circumstance, what do you do? First you work for the other
person, not against them. Don't let your pride get in the way.

No, you work for them. You try to please them. You don't talk back to them.

You work for them, because as you work together, then you're going to work for
what God wants to do in that situation. Now, if they don't have integrity, if
you can't be involved with that person, then don't work for them. But if you
can't work for them, don't work against them.

Go somewhere else. Go find somebody you can work for. I don't know why it is we
get that one messed up so many times.

People are in a job. They can't work for the person, and so they try to work
against them. They go backbite them and gossip against them and work against
them.

Go find another job if you can't work for them. That's the right thing to do.
You're in a church and you feel like you can't follow the leadership in this
church, so you start to gossip against it.

If you can't follow the leadership in the church that you're in, go find a
church that you can follow the leadership. Work for them and not against them.
You work with integrity whatever the circumstance.

Show that you can be fully trusted. Don't steal. Show that you can be fully
trusted.

Sometimes when you're in a bad circumstance, it's an excuse to not have
integrity. Well this company is treating me this way, so there's no problem with
me stealing this from them. It might begin with a pencil, but then all of a
sudden it becomes $10 and $50, and all of a sudden you're an embezzler.

You justify it all the way along because of what they have done to you. No. You
work with integrity whatever the circumstance.

And why? You work to let other people see Jesus in you, so that in every way you
make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. It's really the core of what
we've been looking at this week.

You make the teaching of Jesus attractive. Whatever circumstance you're in, live
that way so that other people can see Jesus Christ in you, so that other people
can see that Jesus Christ has made a difference in your life. You know him now,
so you don't rest on the fact that you know him and you're getting to heaven.

It doesn't matter what you do now. No. You live out your life in such a way that
Jesus is challenging in your heart so other people can see the light.

They need light. People around you that don't yet know Christ in your family, at
your work. Sometimes it's easy if people are close to you, you just get
irritated at them, you just get angry at them.

But the truth of the matter is they need light. And you can be that light
because Jesus Christ is in you. Live in such a way that you make the teaching
about God our Savior attractive.

Let's pray together. Jesus helped me to do this. I'm going to live this kind of
way.

And if there's some changes I need to make, give me the strength to make them. I
want to work for the other person, not against them. I want to work with
integrity, whatever the circumstance.

I want to work to let other people see Jesus in me. Let that happen, Jesus. Let
that happen through your power in my life.

In your name I pray, Amen. Tomorrow we're going to get to look together at some
powerful words about God's grace as we finish chapter two.